Life in the Not So Fast Lane

Patience via nothingbutaquote.com

In my 5th year as a small business owner, I continue to be dumbfounded at how much longer projects take than I could ever expect. In my prior corporate life many moons ago, I worked at a very ambitious, aggressive media company. Deadlines demanded insane work hours, and the piranha-like culture lead to this company’s success for many years (and then later caused its downfall).

At Sweet Revenge® and Marlo Scott Productions™ I have ambitious goals and big dreams, and I set reasonable time-frames for knocking projects off the to-do list. It drives me bananas when I’m unable to accomplish a project any faster than the speed that some other greater life force is dictating. No amount of rah rah rah go team or being frustrated changes the pace. After decades of life denial, I’ve finally accepted that patience makes life more comfortable when things don’t go my way (which is often the case).

Sweet Revenge Signature Burger

Case in point: the dinner menu at Sweet Revenge® which we developed in February. I have eagerly anticipated launching this new menu ever since, knowing that it will be a game changer for my restaurant & wine bar. Yet, seven months have gone by, and we are still too lean in the kitchen to pull it off.

I’ve put major efforts into staffing up and spent a small fortune on Craigslist ads. For various reasons four full-time chefs have come and gone in that time frame. The revolving staff door is a restaurant industry norm but that doesn’t make it any less frustrating. When the last chef was terminated due to gross incompetence, I made peace with my dinner menu. Dinner will launch when it’s meant to be. Sweet Revenge® will be all grown up at that point, transforming from a cupcake, beer & wine bar (serving breakfast, lunch and brunch) into a full-fledged restaurant & wine bar serving the world’s only cupcake, wine & beer pairings menu.

From the time I was a munchkin on the Columbus, IN youth soccer team, I loved running fast. I ran competitively from junior high through my freshman year at Butler University. Its a rush to come out of the blocks and cross the finish line first. Although I feel more like the tortoise than the hare these days, the one thing I have never changed, despite setbacks and shifting sands of time, is my relentless optimism for all the good stuff to come. Patience may be a virtue but when combined with persistence and positivity, virtue is replaced with victory.

We are onboarding a fabulous new chef in a couple of weeks and have a promising candidate who graduates from the CIA in Hyde Park at the end of the month. By my calculations we can legitimately launch dinner by the end of October, assuming I don’t get blindsided :).